1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pair of board connectors which are used in an information processing apparatus, such as a personal computer, to make direct,mutual connections between direct connection to an electronic circuit boards, without an intervening cable.
2. Description of Related Art
Accompanying developments in electronic equipment and in production technology, electronic equipment is becoming lighter and more compact. There is a particular trend in recent years to slim electronic equipment.
However, the functions demanded of such equipment are the same or greater than in the past, and often a single board is not sufficient. This makes it necessary to use a plurality of electronic circuit boards.
In such cases, because of the need for a low profile, the approach is generally that of connecting a plurality of boards together by means of a low-profile connector, so that the boards can be stacked with a small amount of space between them.
The connectors shown in FIG. 8 and FIG. 9 are known as such low-profile board connectors.
The connector shown in FIG. 8(a) is made up of a pair of connectors, the male connector 110 and a female connector 120, each being fixed to an electronic circuit board 130.
The male connector 110 has vertical contacts 111 that stand up vertically from the electronic circuit board 130, and the female connector 120 has contacts 121 which make contact with the sides of the vertical contacts 111, these contacts 121 standing up from the electronic circuit board 130.
The electronic circuit board 130 onto which the female connector 120 is mounted has holes 131 for the passage of the vertical contacts 111.
The connector shown in FIG. 9(a) has a male connector 110 such as is shown in FIG. 8, however, the contacts 141 of the female connector 140 in this case are formed so as to be disposed on the inside of a hole 132 that is provided in the electronic circuit board 130, so that gauge formed between the circuit boards 130, is reduced.
When making mutual connections between these connectors, as shown in FIG. 8(b) and FIG. 9(b), the vertical contacts 111 of the male connector 110 pass through the holes 131 and 132 of the female connectors 120 and 140, respectively, the vertical contacts 111 of the male connector 110, mating and making physical contact with the contacts 121 and 141 of the female connectors 120 and 140, respectively.
The connectors such as shown in FIG. 8 and FIG. 9, however, have the following problems.
The first problem is the need to make the above-noted holes in the electronic circuit board. The making of a hole in the board increases the number of fabrication steps and the cost of the board, and also results in a decrease in the strength of the electronic circuit board.
The approach of having the vertical contacts of the male connector pass through holes in the electronic circuit board to which the female connector is fixed compensates for the shortened effective mating length of the contacting parts that results from the low height of the connector. This increases the effective mating length.
The second problem is that, in a connector of the past, a low-profile connector has a structure that achieves little wiping effect in its contacts, so that there is a possibility that the attachment of foreign matter therein can cause a bad contact.
The reason for this is that, by making the spacing between the boards small, the effective mating length between the connectors becomes shortened, so that a cleaning effect from the wiping of the contacts when the connectors are mated might not be achieved.
For this reason, there is a possibility that foreign matter becomes lodged between the contacts, thereby lowering the contact reliability.